Last month, there were multiple instances of Russian aircraft harassing American aircraft in Syria—sometimes by flying dangerously close, and in two instances by firing flares that damaged U.S. drones. Andrew Tabler argues that Moscow’s aggressive behavior is retaliation for Washington’s support for Ukraine, and suggests how the U.S. might respond:

July’s . . . incidents come immediately in the wake of the Russian president Vladimir Putin’s suppression of the mutiny in Russia of Wagner forces, whose operations in Syria, reports indicate, have been taken over by the Russian Ministry of Defense.

American Syria-policy decisions that have changed the political context in Syria certainly have not helped. Following a devastating earthquake on February 6 along the Turkish-Syria frontier, the U.S. Treasury Department issued General License 23, which allowed for transactions [exempted] as “earthquake relief” from current U.S. sanctions on Syria. While the license was justified in the face of the scale of destruction and humanitarian need in Syria, the license language was particularly broad.

Official U.S. policy opposes normalization with Bashar al-Assad, but U.S. regional allies read the license as permission to normalize relations with the Assad regime, leading to Syria’s readmittance to the Arab League at its latest summit last May in Jeddah. . . . Moscow has [also] read the license as . . . the latest indication that Washington cares little about Syria policy, and it believes the time is ripe to push U.S. forces out of Syria.

The best way to deter Moscow from escalating with Washington over Syria is to change the political context there. Washington should show in deeds and not just words that it is opposed to the Kremlin’s client in Damascus.

If Iran succeeds in obtaining nuclear weapons, the war in Gaza, let alone the protests on college campuses, will seem like a minor complication. Jonathan Schachter fears that this danger could be much more imminent than decisionmakers in Jerusalem and Washington believe. In his view, Israel seems to be repeating the mistake that allowed it to be taken by surprise on Simchat Torah of 2023 and Yom Kippur of 1973: putting too much faith in an intelligence concept that could be wrong.

Israel and the United States apparently believe that despite Iran’s well-documented progress in developing capabilities necessary for producing and delivering nuclear weapons, as well as its extensive and ongoing record of violating its international nuclear obligations, there is no acute crisis because building a bomb would take time, would be observable, and could be stopped by force. Taken together, these assumptions and their moderating impact on Israeli and American policy form a new Iran concept reminiscent of its 1973 namesake and of the systemic failures that preceded the October 7 massacre.

Meanwhile, most of the restrictions put in place by the 2015 nuclear deal will expire by the end of next year, rendering the question of Iran’s adherence moot. And the forces that could be taking action aren’t:

The European Union regularly issues boilerplate press releases asserting its members’ “grave concern.” American decisionmakers and spokespeople have created the unmistakable impression that their reservations about the use of force are stronger than their commitment to use force to prevent an Iranian atomic bomb. At the same time, the U.S. refuses to enforce its own sanctions comprehensively: Iranian oil exports (especially to China) and foreign-currency reserves have ballooned since January 2021, when the Biden administration took office.

Israel’s response has also been sluggish and ambiguous. Despite its oft-stated policy of never allowing a nuclear Iran, Israel’s words and deeds have sent mixed messages to allies and adversaries—perhaps inadvertently reinforcing the prevailing sense in Washington and elsewhere that Iran’s nuclear efforts do not present an exigent crisis.